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Droemar — Canis: Page 4
Published: 2011-08-02 01:37:52 +0000 UTC; Views: 9432; Favourites: 61; Downloads: 35
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Description
Is there ever any doubt in wolf comics as to whether a prophecy will come true?It never seems to occur to any wolf comic individual, including the hero, to question anything. I suppose, in one way, it underlines that wolves can be unquestioning brutes bowing to their chain of command, but on the other, the Mary Sue crap of “I’m never wrong, bitches!” gets tiresome, no matter how much fur and wild majesty/cuteness one wraps it up in.
Any predator is always interested in food. This as a core motivation/character-value-with-stakes almost never shows up in wolf comics, and I honestly can’t say why. Many comics treat eating like Burger King, despite natural statistics suggesting that a predator is more likely to fail than succeed most of the time. When killing is depicted, its usually to establish A) the badass nature of wolves B) their noble ferocity, or C) how ebul/cool the villain/hero is. This is yet another critical window of opportunity to celebrate lupines that is often missed, bypassed, or ignored.
Killing is a huge part of any predator, and as such, ought to be a big part of their culture. (Talk to any undeveloped country about food culture. The first cave men didn’t make up stories about how easy that deer was to kill.) Desire, nay, downright life-or-death desperation should drive every page of every wolf comic ever, because holy crap, these guys are one meal away from dying. Instead, “the hunt” is something tertiary, a nod to something that has no story relevance, but acts as more a “Oh, by the way, this has to happen cause they’re wolves and all.” Hunts are never, EVER used to characterize, as rites of passage or transformation (say, coming of age or a shift in power because scrawny guy suddenly became alpha material in the eyes of the pack
taking down that bull moose), or as a tool for driving tension or character dynamics (you never see a hunt fail because two snarks are bitching at each other, do you?)
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Comments: 45
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I love your wolf comic. Best one I've read so far.
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I'm making a wolf and deer comic [half of it is the deer side of nature, the other is wolves] and in the 2nd page, some wolves were hunting an elk. In the last panel, there was blood splattered everywhere on the grass and a trail of blood, then the word 'bleep!' coming from the elk, because that's the sound they make.
My readers don't know this yet, but the blood isn't from the elk. After the prologue is done [a deer is telling the story of how every animal was made to a calf and blahblah] the elk will wander in and tell it had kicked a wolf and ran. So their hunt failed. Only a few of their hunts will be successful, and this comic inspired me to make a realistic one. So here, we go. Spirit. My new comic was made.
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I'm glad to see I inspired someone. All the work was totally worth it.
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And it's lovely too <3. I also love The Pact, and I'm really interested in Mark of the Conifer... is it out for sale yet?
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No, not yet. It's still in rewrites at the moment.
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I like this, because now I know what not to do if I ever make a wolf comic.
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And in the rare case the wolves are shown hunting, they will kill a deer or other big, hoofed animal and always do it by biting it on the neck and causing splatterfest by doing that. Some day I'd like to make a scene in Wurr illustrating the dogs hunting deer, with couple of guys distracting it and the rest trying to rip its groin open like wolves in nature documentaries do. I designed the dogs' cultural weapon to have been invented for similar purpose, I want to use it.
(On a completely unrelated note, the name "Moonstar" is painful! Just generally painful, but made a bit more so by the lingering memory that I used to have a namesake character when I was something like twelve years old.)
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Oh no! I'm sorry; I was really going for super cliche as possible; I couldn't think of anything more wolfy than "Moonstar."
You're like, the ONLY person ever who has a decent canine comic going, do you know that? You don't suffer from cliche', you have fantastic world-building, and great story.
Especially seeing the reaction to this, I've gained a whole new respect for what you've done with Wurr. I bow to thee, Queen of Good Canine Comics!
All hail Wolfpearl!
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Haha, that is possibly as cliché as it gets. My "Moonstar" was, if I recall correctly, either a white wolf with silver eyes or a black horse with star shaped... uh, star on its forehead. And something silver, I had a thing for silver back then. Anyway the character was a Hero TM sort of character with less personality than your average piece of cardboard. Oh, wait, the horse was just "Star". Back then English was the super speshul language and all so I had a phase of naming all my characters with "speshul" English words. Boy, I'm so glad I had never heard of internet back then!
Umh, thanks! It's just that I love world building. I find it really interesting tinkering with cultures developed to fit a species that walks mostly on all fours and has a social structure based on packs. It's fun!
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I can see this comic taking a very dark turn in the end knowing you. It's far more informative as a deconstruction than as a parody.
I think a lot of wolf comic problems are more symptomatic of a larger cultural problem; children parroting the simple unchallenging stories they read in poorly written comic books and movies without adding much to the story. That makes the stories little more than reflections on what's popular in our society and less about writers adding to our collective conscious. Then again, that's what children do, they parrot things until they gain a better understanding of what they're repeating. Its only when you get older that you start really deconstructing those things (which usually starts when you're a teenager). Adults are mentally better at questioning the information they swallow than children. Even more socially conscious children (like I was considered as a youngin') will still parrot the things they like without much evaluation. I've looked back at some of the things I wrote as a teen and wince NOT because the writing is "bad" (relative to others my age, it was good) but because it displayed such a shallow understanding of things.
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Haha, you know me too well, EDSA. I definitely was more intrigued by a deconstruction, even asking "Is it even possible?" got interesting real quick.
You bring up a great point, too. The wolf idealism is shallow, because it deplores the very human opinion that shapes it in the first place, and the same time celebrating something that is not the animal, and is, in fact extremely human. But that sort of nuance is hard for people, and I think sometimes willfully so.
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Mmm, have you seen the Wolf's Rain anime? I mean, it totally has the whole mystical prophecy never-do-wrong leader thing.... but they *are* always starving. They hardly ever hunt and usually steal food or find carcasses, and the one time they really hunt something, it *is* the young, weak one proving himself as a rite of passage.
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Wow, yet another wolf cliche I managed to capture: the gender dispute.
Ravenwind is actually male.
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Okay. XD
I thought he was a woman for some strange reason. Probably because I've read the Sight too much.
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I am SO going to make a comic that uses all of the elements that you mention. I think it will be hellishly fun
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I'm not exactly following this story, is this actually in sequence or are they random pages. They're not flowing at the moment. Also I'm kinda lost as to the point of this comic, are you trying to illustrate the wrong or carry out the right? Because sometimes your comments have no bearing to page you've made. So far I think you've pulled off making it look cliched and impossibly unrealistic, good job if you're trying the former (illustrate the wrong).
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( It's a deconstruction)
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So as I understand this, you're writing this comic to make fun of other comics?
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Deconstruction of the wolf comic cliche. Parody would have been too easy.
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Not to mention that the wolves in stories always seem to take down big bucks that could easily kick their noses inside out, when in reality wolves will weed out young, old, sick, or injured prey because, by golly, it's easier to kill. But noooo, our wolves have to be special: uber strong and brave and noble.
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Hehe, I did that C: My wolves hunted a younger buck who had strayed out too far and in the 2nd page there was blood splattered everywhere after the hunt. No one who's read it knows that it isn't the deer's blood 
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Haha. XD Good for you.
Do you have this comic on DA? Or on the internet in general?
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Yup, but it's only up to it's 2nd page XD. So no one's really gotten the meaning of 'omg wolves aren't so speshul in this comic'.
Just wait until they kill the alpha.
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Well I hope the comic goes well for you.
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I would say you might want to read Wolves of the Beyond by the person who did Guardians of Ga'Hoole. Where the hunt is used as a way to establish placement in wolf packs or a rite of passage. I have to say its a good story so far, where the wolves actually remind me of wolves mixed with a bit of fantasy. I am quite loving this story so far to, a refreshing tale to the cliche's of regular wolf comics. x3
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That's cool. I liked her owl story; I'll check it out!
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You... just lost so much respect from me.
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Uh oh. No love for Gahoole, eh?
I might as well say I'm a huge fan of Redwall, too.
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Redwall is fine, it was written by someone who could write, for the most part. The Ga'hoole books are written terribly, paced oddly, and suffer from the lack of character growth or even characters that have much personality at all, and we spend too much time with our resident Mary Who. You could loose 90% of those characters and loose nothing. The writer contradicts herself, and can't decide between science and forward thinking or magic and "following your gizzard". She repeats herself constantly, defines and redefines things that don't need it over and over and over, and has this strange fascination with wet bird crap.
I will admit the first book was good, especially if you know anything about concentration camps, but after that... they suck, and make that first only good book rather pointless with some later revelations. The movie was better, and it isn't that amazing really. Pretty though.
I just had to read 1-6 for a review last week, I'm still coming off of a rage high.
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I am on a forum with a Ga'hoole fan. she loves it so much she uses that term. "you don't have a gizzard, stop saying that"
then i get called stupid because I don't know what the owls ment.
I saw the film. was reluctant to because of her.
I wanted to make my own inane animal comic, but then don't want it to be to stupid.
the owls have weapons and armor. but no hands. just like wolf comic wolves somtimes.
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That never bothered me, their talons served as hands. I've seen birds do some neat things with their beaks and feet, so that didn't bother me so much.
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yeah. it kind of makes up for it. just the elaborate armor they had.
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I will say the Ga'hoole books weren't the best ever; I got them because the movie was coming out, and I like to do justice to the books rather than depend on a movie. I suppose I liked it more for the effort than her execution; her world was pretty cool, but seemed overtly constrained by the "writing for little kids, now" mindset.
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Sure was a lot of blood and the ever looming owl Auschwitz for a "writing for little kids, now". I didn't get the feeling that she was being constrained so much as enjoying my suffering as something interesting is brought up and then never spoken of again.
Or things come out of nowhere, like at the end of book three:
"Wait, Kludd is Metal Beak? Where the heck has he been? I know he was kind of a jerk as a chick, but when did that happen? How does he have an army? What?!" O.o;
" Tee hee, we won't tell you for another book, leaving you confused and taking you out of the action the entire time, and it won't be a very good explanation! Now, stop thinking. Time for another wet poop joke that we tell you is funny but don't actually tell you, save for that one time, and it was corny as heck!"
"Just... screw you Kathryn Lasky... just... gah."
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Maybe she's just the lesser of many, many evils to me. She's no Paolini or Meyer or Cassandra Clare (CLAAAAAAAAAAAAARE!), and won the sweet "most kickass looking movie ever" prize.
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She did get the better movie. Animal Logic does a pretty good job I think.
I saw Eregon the movie, and it was... I kept looking for Rita Repulsa. Man the actors were awful. But I haven't read the book yet, I borrowed it just to see if it's as bad as you said it was. And I've avoided Clare thus far, and I think I might just continue doing so.
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It takes place in the same universe as the Ga'Hoole series (its just another country from looking at the map), so you may see little tidbits of references to Ga'Hoole one. x3
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